Being an Outsider (Revised)

Outside the Camp

Have you ever found yourself to be in a place where you just don’t seem to fit in? A place where you seem to be misunderstood no matter what you a say or do? Have you ever been in a place where even your motives are prejudged and misconstrued. You just feel totally uncomfortable? Do you remember how it felt on the first day of your first job? Your first day at a new school and they don’t like the color of your new dress or new shoes? You find yourself in a place where you just don’t seem to fit in? Where your lifestyle seem to always be in question, as if everybody else got their stuff together?

Well if thats you, then you are exactly who Christ is looking for. Because nothing makes for a better Christian, a better person, than a person that has been broken. I’ve seen more men driven to Christ behind broken marriages than anything else. Going to jail may be a close second.

It’s the heart that has been broken, that cry’s out the most to God. God ain’t looking foe the overly proud, arrogant one that thinks they are better than everybody. God is not in the click. He said that he is in the midst of two or more who are gathered in his name, not in your name. But for some reason even the church has adopted this destructive type of reasoning. Certain people seem to think that the mandate of the church starts and ends with them.

Brothers and sisters that was the attitude of some in first century Israel.

In our passage that we are studying today, the newly converted believers were being pressured by those who assumed they knew better, only because they were so called learned in the laws of Moses; the newly converted believers were told that they had to be circumcised according to the laws of Moses along with having faith in Christ, in order to become accepted by God. In other words old school were trying to intimidate those who were fresh and brand new to go back to the old way of doing things. That old process that was no longer necessary in order to be saved. These Judaeizers just could not let go of what I am officially labeling today as tent religion.

When the children of Israel were living in tents, in the wilderness, God provided his children with a way to temporarily remain in good standing in His presence. Judaeism, the Laws of Moses, the Levitical priesthood, were, in ancient Israel the only way to God even though on a temporary bases. God provided a priesthood who would serve Him in tents called the Tabernacle, that would eventually become the Temple building in Jerusalem.

But check out what it says in our text starting in Hebrews 13:10.

Hebrews 13:10 (ESV): 10 We have an altar from which those who serve the tent have no right to eat.

In other words your old fashioned way of doing things is no longer in fashion. Stay stuck in the old if you want to, but it’s time to move on. It’s time to move on from that old tent religion and move towards the new.

Romans 10:4 says 4 For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes

For Christ is the end of that old style, that old talk, that old way of doing things. There are too many of us today that want to stay stuck in that old time religion, that old way of doing things, while at the same time ignoring the fact that we are loosing the attention of a whole generation of young people. Why? Because we are not doing a good job relating the Jesus of the gospel to their real time situations. The only version of church they see seem to be at odds with their own culture. The version of church they seem to experience seem to deny their real life experiences. The church they see on tv have’nt reached their block, their neck of the woods. And the churches that are on their corner seem to parrot those same churches that don’t seem to believe that there lives matter as well.

Ooh why did I say that. Now somebody might get offended. But it’s ok to offend the poor girl who may have had an abortion in the past. It’s ok to offend those who struggle with an alternate life style.

We choose who it’s ok to offend while at the same time tip toeing around other topics.

Well I got news for you. Jesus Christ is an equal opportunity offender. Let me explain through the text.

10 We have an altar from which those who serve the tent have no right to eat.

This was a clear direct denial of the very system that God gave Moses on Mt Sinai. Not that the law isn’t good, but the law does the opposite of salvation. The law condemns. The law condenms all who fall short of it’s own goodness. But the judaizers were doing their best to hold on to the religion that God gave to a people living in tents. And because they refuse to let go of Moses and move on to where Christ, they lost their right to serve or even be served at Gods altar. The priest had lost there way. Why? Because they were offended by Christ

11 For the bodies of those animals whose blood is brought into the holy places by the high priest as a sacrifice for sin are burned outside the camp. 12 So Jesus also suffered outside the gate in order to sanctify the people through his own blood.

Brothers and sisters, Jesus ain’t even trying to mimick the priest and there old time religion. It ain’t the priest that Jesus is being compared to in this passage. It’s the dead mangled bodies of the blooded animals burned outside the city that represents Jesus, not the stuck up dressed up buttoned priesthood, Naugh. Jesus is in the lamb of God slained at the altar.

The church can learn something in this passage. It ain’t your shiny cuff links, your polished shoes, your fancy hairstyles, your brand new vehicles parked outside that makes you more like Christ.

What makes you look more like Christ is your ability to love somebody that is other thaan you.

What makes you more like Christ is whether you are willing to sacrifice at your own detriment for those who ain’t got it together like you.

Jesus become poor in order that we all become rich, we all wanna eat

Then why does the american church take the side of the rich evrytime there is a new policy in Washington D.C. that supports the poor.

Whatabout the poor? Whatabout the oppressed? Whatabout the down troddened, the broken hearted?

I will challenge anybody to go from cover to cover of this book and tell me that God doesn’t especially look out for the poor.

Jesus had no intention of being a part of the Jewish click. Jesus was in the bloodied animals sacrificed for the sins of the people.

Blessed are the poor, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven .......

If we are going to be the church, we are going to have to look more like Christ, and less like the dressed up buttoned up priesthood whose time had passed. What does looking like Christ mean actually.

Hebrews 13:13 (ESV): 13 Therefore let us go to him outside the camp and bear the reproach he endured.

Brothers and sisters, when a person became sick with a transferable disease, they were sent outside the camp. The bloodied bodies of animals who’s blood was spilled at the alter of sacrifice as a sin offering, after they were done with spilling there blood, they sent the their bodies outside the city, outside the camp, in order to be burned. When a person was deemed unclean, they were sent outside the city, outside the camp to fend for themselves.

If you wanna look like Jesus, you have to be willing to go where Jesus had gone. Because when they condenmed him to the death of the cross, they set the cross up outside the camp, on Calvary Hill.

13 Therefore let us go to him outside the camp and bear the reproach he endured.

When we read this chapter we need to pay attention to the fact that our sacrifice to the body of Christ should resemble the bloodied and bruised animals on the altar. Are we willing to lose it all for the glory of God. We’ve become spoiled in this country because there is no resistance to us going to church. But try doing this in North Korea, Somalia, Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan. Those Christians really look like Christ over there because they are being slaughtered literally for their faith. Those people would be the bloodied animals at the altar of sacrifice. While they are over there dying for their faith we over here all dressed up like the priesthood thinking we looking more like Christ than they. While they are over there in the trenches together for the sake of Christ, we over here on easy street hating and backbiting on one another, the very thing Scripture tell us not to do. But we think we serving Christ. It’s gonna be a shameful day when we have to stand before Christ along with a Christian bloodied and bruised for their faith in Somalia. They gone get all the crowns. Those are the good and faithful servants. Don’t think Christ is not gonna remind us of how we treated our brothers and sisters sitting next to us. While we sporting our thousand dollar suits thinking the church revolves around us. We might need to be asking the question once again what must I do to be saved because apparently we than forgot. But that is a good question.

We’re not the the persecuted Church. We’re not the bloodied animals on the alter. And being that we in American are the church on easy street, we better get to work on missions quick fast and in a hurry. Because to whom much is given, much is required. All of us need to figure out how we’re gonna contribute sacrificially to this new vision that pastor has for this church and being that we are not persecuted enough to look like Christ, we better find a Christly attribute of His to mimmick until He comes back or we will be found wanting. Thats a fact.

There are three actions in this verse we can take to help us look more like the bloodied and bruised Christ and less like the buttoned up priesthood whose time had passed.

Love one another vv1-3

Acknowledge God v15

Share indiscriminately with others who are truly without. v16

(read and explain those passages)

We as a church need to start looking less like the world and more like Christ. Christ was an outsider, who sacrificed his all in order to help soomebody to become more like him.

So if he could endure the ridicule, so can we.

If he can endure the loneliness and the heartache that exist when feeling like an outsider, so can we. It may not feel right, but if we find ourselves in this predicament while serving Christ, then we are in a good place.

That’s all the people in this passage had to do is suffer the ridicule of the tent religion, for a little while.

If the church would look more like Jesus and less like the Levitical Priesthood, less like we are entitled to something, maybe we would become more attractive to believers city wide. Nobody wants to join a church full of selfish people that looks no different than the people at their jobs, fighting over this and that. Jesus was willing to go outside the norm, in order to save somebody. He was willing to meet the sick the hurting the oppresed where they are. Jesus was able to relate to the hurting communities because he allowed himself to become a sacrifice for an oppressed people, who were located outside the camp. Amen.